Talk:At-will employment/Archives/2019

Is the lede fulfilling WP:NPOV?

Some neutral opinion would be appreciated in deciding if either of two opposing views of how this article's lede should look is to be preferred. TinaFromTexas (talk) 05:09, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Examples of the alternatives are this earlier version which emphasizes the implications of the At-Will concept on employees; and this later version which presents the implications on both employees and employers. TinaFromTexas (talk) 05:11, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

We should look to tertiary sources to see how to weight the viewpoints to satisfy WP:NPOV. Unfortunately, I don't have access right now to good legal sources (think along the lines of expensive print treatises). My list of sources I could find in a brief search:

• [1] (cited in lede 2) appears to be a good starting point for balancing NPOV.
• www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/employment-at-will-definition-30022.html is somewhat useful, though the legal advice to pro se employees should be factored out
• Encyclopedia Brittanica Online turned up nothing.
• [2] Wex legal dictionary from Cornell Law School, describing the doctrine as criticized

So just from my initial research, I'm inclined to prefer the second version as more faithfully balancing the POVs, although the lede is quite lengthy and could have related ideas condensed. RJaguar3 | u | t 19:42, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm especially concerned about this sentence: "The history of the doctrine is debated, with recent scholarship arguing that the conventional view -- that at-will arose gradually during the latter part of the 19th century -- is incorrect and that in fact the United States always has followed the employment-at-will doctrine." We should strive for truth when possible, but if what is the truth is in debate as much as this suggests, then there shouldn't be such a definitive stance in the article, especially in the lede. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 04:06, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, Professor Bellam's views as expressed in that 1996 article (20 years ago, hardly recent) are a view of a minority and the dominant majority view is that at-will was born from a misreading of Wood's treatise. However, the only way to be certain of that would be to run a citation analysis on that article and check that against a citation analysis of the article by Professor Morriss which Bellam was attempting to challenge back in 1996. (It appears that Bellam retired a few years ago from OSU, while Morriss went on to become dean of the law school at Texas A&M.) --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)